Monday, May 2, 2011

But really, can't we get beyond Thunderdome?

There's something of a natural process of escalation that's built into this job.

Before every show I talk up the guests, and then after every show I talk up the guests. Occasionally I do callbacks to previous guests. I spend some time on the guests, is what I'm saying here.

I do this for two reasons: one, it's just part of my job to say that the people we book bestride the narrow world like a colossus while we petty men peep out to find ourselves dishonorable graves, and two, they do, in fact, bestride the narrow world like a colossus while we petty men peep out to find ourselves dishonorable graves (kind of a handy coincidence, that).

Still, at some point, I'm going to begin finding it hard to top myself. Sure, I could tell you that the gals from Monday Night Foreplays were so funny at our Saturday taping that they might have shifted the earth's crust a couple of inches, like a sort of comedic Tohuku earthquake. But come to think of it, don't I say that about the PianoFight regulars too?

The way I see it, there's only one way to resolves this:Gladiatorial combat!

Yes, I propose that this show's guests square off against previous shows' guests to determine, once and for all, just whose ass I ought to be kissing around here!

That's right, I want Blake Schaefer and Todd Shipley to square off mano y mano, guitarra y guitarra in a magical musical duel (guitarists do that sort of thing, right?) for the privilege of being called the Variety Society's greatest guitar-toting folk hero!

Is it crass? Sure. Gratuitous? Certainly. A senseless sideshow of carnage for the sake of an imagined prize of little or no value? Naturally! But at least...um...kind of forgot where I was going with this, actually.